Good Morning! How was everyone’s weekend? Ours was filled with dust storms on top of dust storms. As miserable as they can make anyones day, I’m the first to tell myself that you decide how your day turns out. Sure things can prevent it from being a perfect day, but no matter how hard you try, no day can be perfect. That’s just how life goes sometimes.

Anyhow! Today I’ll be celebrating Marvelous In My Monday in a way that I don’t usually. I want to make you aware of the benefits that come when drinking Lemon Water. What makes this marvelous? Simple, something so cheap & easy to make (if you can even call it “making”), has a crazy amount of nutritional advantages to our everyday lives.

Reliefs Digestion. Drinking lemon juice helps to flush out unwanted materials from the body. Lemon Juice is similar in atomic structure to saliva and the hydrochloric acid of digestive juices. It encourages the liver to produce bile which is an acid that is required for digestion. It’s also proved to help to relieve symptoms of indigestion, such as heartburn, belching and bloating.

It balances pH levels. Our pH level speaks to the balance between the alkaline and acidic properties in the body. When our body enters an acidic state, it raises sickness and sometimes diseases. Because lemon is one of the most alkaline foods, it aids in helping your whole body repair & fight bacteria and toxins before it turns into an illness.

Aids in Weight Loss. Lemons are high in pectin fiber, which helps fight hunger cravings. So, if you are constantly attempting to curb your appetite with drinks such as coffee or tea, try lemon water instead.

Dental Care. When fresh lemon juice is placed on the tooth area, it can help get rid of pain, or even stop your gums from bleeding.

Clears Skin. The vitamin C component as well as other antioxidants helps eliminate wrinkles and blemishes. Vitamin C is vital for healthy radiant skin while its alkaline nature kills some type of bacteria known to cause acne. Some people may not know, if you were to squeeze lemon juice on burnt areas, it can help with fading the scar.

Those are my top five -Keep in mind that there are many other benefits as well!

Now tell me, do you drink lemon water on a daily basis?

“… Yesterday is History. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present” – Babatunde Olantunji

Good Morning and Happy weekend! I am so sorry to have been absent these past couple of days. As I’m sure you can imagine, life has been a bit hectic since the fire. I wanted to share some after fire & the clean up photos with all of you, and let you know what exactly happened. Before I get into the details I want to say THANK YOU for the prayers, comments, tweets, and messages y’all left. No words can describe how much it all meant to Joshua & I. You guys are just incredible <3

11:30PM: Heard a strange noise that I thought was rain pounding on our bedroom window. Sat in bed for a second, then decided to get up & check. Looked out the window and saw nothing but flames. Started screaming “Fire, Fire!”, and yelled to Joshua to get the dogs.

I ran out of the bedroom to see if the fire was in the house as well (it wasn’t).

Joshua and I made it out safely (obviously). The fire trucks and police came. We sat outside until 3AM with two dogs (were pet sitting for one of Joshua’s co-workers). The manager of our flats called their cleaning company around 1:30AM to come clean up everything.

(I wish I had pictures of before the cleaning was done. Our house was flooded, there was debris, glass and dirt EVERYWHERE!)

Up until today, our house has smelt like straight smoke. We went to Caribou Coffee the night/morning of the fire, since obviously sleep wasn’t happening. Joshua left for work around 5AM, and I took care of cleaning more, taking our bed comforter/sheets/blankets to the laundromat, and just putting things back into place.

We only ended up losing materialistic items. I just thank God that I heard the noise when I did, and that we were able to get out before it had gotten bad.

What you can’t see in the pictures below is all the trash that’s in the “alley way”. When we first moved in, we told them to take care of it bc we thought it would be a fire hazard.

Well hey, what do you know. Looks like we were completely right! Were not exactly sure what the cause was. We’re about 80% sure someone above must have thrown a cigarette out of the window.

Looking out from our bedroom window into the little “alley way” that runs from our bedroom past our kitchen

The first photo is looking out from our front door. As you can see, our front door leads to another door that leads to one entrance of our kitchen. The third photo shows me standing looking into our bedroom

Looking into our bedroom again. The second photo shows the kitchen window

The first photo shows our AC unit that was torched, and the second photo shows the shattered window & looking outside to where the fire was

Good Morning! I don’t really have too much time to talk this morning. If you follow me on twitter, you’re aware that we had a fire at our home last night. So needless to say I have enough to worry about today.

I did want to drop in today & just remind you how important it is to tell your loved ones how much they mean to you on a daily basis. You never know when a life could end, so always smile, and always remember how lucky you are to live the beautiful life you live <3